


i'll be the one

by mayerwien



Category: British Actor RPF, Shenanigans (Original Universe)
Genre: 1930s References, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Crack Treated Seriously, Demisexuality, London, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, brief depiction of a panic attack, i'm crying i can't believe this became a thing, some tongue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-09-25 06:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20372386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayerwien/pseuds/mayerwien
Summary: “Richard is,” Elliot begins—and then he does turn that smile of his on Richard, his eyes alight, and the thing Richard’s been tamping down inside his chest does a sideways twist.“Honestly?” Elliot says, the corner of his mouth still tilted upwards in that infuriating way. “The word ‘dream’ comes to mind, but the truth is, Richard is infinitely better than anything I could have possibly dreamed.”Brat,Richard thinks.





	i'll be the one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celestexists](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestexists/gifts).

> Or, Elliot charms Richard Madden out of his socks and Ceece out of her lunch money.
> 
> This gift work was created as part of the [Fandom for Siken](https://fandomforsiken.tumblr.com) charity auction we ran earlier this year; thank you so much to everyone who participated and supported the project! 
> 
> Happy Sikenfest, b! I saw an ask you answered once about places you wanted to visit and you mentioned London, so I tried to bring a little bit of London to you. :’D 
> 
> Title from “Party for One” by our queen, Carly Rae.

The thing about Richard is that everyone says he’s absolutely lovely to work with. _Everyone—_except for Taron, who likes to joke that Richard was a complete diva and an arsehole on the Rocketman set, but everyone knows that’s just Taron being Taron. (“I’m going to call Elton and tell him how mean you are to me,” Richard always threatens, and Taron always replies smugly, “Elton doesn’t care, I’m his son now and he loves me.”)

So Richard doesn’t understand why he’s so stupidly nervous now, sitting in the bowl of the empty theatre and listening to this journalist asking his director and co-stars what doing this play with him has been like. His director is very kind, and says all the usual things—_from the moment I signed on I knew who I wanted to call in to audition, Richard brings a warm gravitas to the role that is absolutely beautiful to watch,_ et cetera. Still, Richard feels as though his throat is closing up, and his heart is doing something strange in his chest.

“And you, Elliot—may I call you Elliot?” the journalist asks next, turning to the young man in front of her, who nods. “What’s it been like, playing opposite Richard Madden?”

Elliot tilts his head, thinking, and then slowly starts to smile a sly, almost conspiratorial smile—the one that somehow always seems to catch Richard by surprise, whether they’re standing across from each other on stage, or sitting hip to hip in the soft, smoky darkness of a pub after evening rehearsals. The one Richard has repeatedly had to tell himself doesn’t _mean _anything, when it’s directed at him.

“Richard is,” Elliot begins—and then he does turn that smile of his on Richard, his eyes alight, and the thing Richard’s been tamping down inside his chest does a sideways twist.

“Honestly?” Elliot says, the corner of his mouth still tilted upwards in that infuriating way. “The word ‘dream’ comes to mind, but the truth is, Richard is infinitely better than anything I could have possibly dreamed.”

_Brat,_ Richard thinks, with a rush of fondness. But what he says, smoothly, is, “Well, Elliot, you’re not so bad yourself,” and leans back in his seat and folds his arms, arranging his face so he looks far less affected than he feels.

He’s certain it works. After all, he’s been told he’s a damn good actor.

—

The play is a new one, called _The Caravan Club,_ and is based loosely on the history of a real gay nightclub that experienced a short-lived notoriety in 1930s London. Richard plays the speakeasy’s proprietor, Jack Neave, known to all as Iron Foot Jack because of the metal extension on his injured right leg—so over the past month, Richard’s had to learn to walk and to dash short distances with the heavy prop boot. It starts to feel strange to take it off at the end of the day; by now he’s grown used to the weight of it, the way it makes him slow down and be more aware of every movement.

The other main character of the play is Billy Reynolds, a young, affluent man who walks into the club one night and offers to help finance it, and who then becomes Jack’s business partner and lover. The romance isn’t historical, to the best of their knowledge, but no one really seems to care.

Richard had been somewhat wary when they told him they were casting a young unknown to play Billy, an American to boot—and then he’d met Elliot, just before their first table read. Elliot played it cool and disenchanted for about three days, speaking in a languid drawl, barely acknowledging Richard when they were in the same room. And then one morning, during an early creatives meeting that they were sitting in on, Elliot stood up in the middle of the set designer’s presentation, feathers clearly ruffled, and said, “No, no, that’s all wrong, _look,”_ and proceeded to draw all over the rendering with a whiteboard marker, until the director cleared her throat and pointedly thanked Elliot for sharing his extensive knowledge of queer 30s bohemia.

And Richard had thought Elliot was mildly interesting at best, before then—but right at that moment when he witnessed Elliot drop the act, he was completely sucked into his orbit.

Elliot is one of the strangest creatures Richard’s ever encountered. He has seemingly endless stores of energy, and he’ll argue with anyone about anything under the sun; he loves trying to start arguments with Richard, but generally Richard just lets him win. Elliot is also wildly fussy about aesthetics, and he loves to dress up when they go out—not to be noticed by photographers (“I’m not famous enough for that,” Elliot laughed once, and then winked and added, “yet,”) but just because he so clearly delights in it. When Elliot found out Richard was just planning to use an old suit for the upcoming BAFTAs, he’d yelped, _“Richard, _you are not recycling outfits _on my watch,”_ and immediately dragged him out to Bond Street for an afternoon of shopping.

To be fair, on the night itself, Richard got a lot of compliments on the suit Elliot picked out for him. Everyone said it brought out the blue of his eyes.

In return Richard makes Elliot bulletproof coffees, with coconut oil and real Kerrygold; coaches him on his London accent when they’re running lines, gently ruffles pomade into his hair from the back when he’s seated in front of his dressing room mirror. For all his impassioned outbursts, there’s something, sometimes, about Elliot that seems so inexplicably tender, that makes Richard want to scoop him up in his arms and just take care of him for a while. Like he’s some sort of baby animal, a goat or a foal—which feels wholly ridiculous to Richard every time the thought crosses his mind.

On stage, Elliot is such a naturally brilliant actor that it’s difficult for anyone to believe this is the first professionally produced play he’s acted in—but he seems to have other plans for himself. “What I think I really want to do,” he confesses to Richard one night, “is direct. Maybe produce, too.” The two of them are sharing a bottle of rosé after hours as they sit in the middle of the stage, all its surfaces draped with swathes of jewel-toned fabric. If Richard tries, he can imagine they’re in a real speakeasy, just the two of them cocooned in a safe little space far away from the rest of the world—definitely a far cry from the packed house this theatre will be when they open in just a few weeks.

“Is there anything in particular you’ve thought about directing?” Richard asks, taking a sip from the warm bottle. (Elliot refused to drink from the bottle and is using one of the prop wine glasses.)

Elliot rocks back slightly, propping himself up by resting his weight on his palms. “So many musicals, god. _Steel Pier. Company. Giant_. When there’s a _Frozen_ revival eventually, I’m definitely directing that, I already have the plans for it in my head.” Elliot sounds excited, and when Richard gives him a sideways glance, he can see the sparkle in his light eyes. He’s seen Elliot walking around the theatre even when it’s not his time to rehearse—just observing everything, asking questions of the stage manager and the production manager and the technical director, daring to make suggestions when their director is out of earshot. Elliot would make a good director himself, Richard thinks in agreement. He was born to it; he has the vision for it. More importantly, he’s willing to work hard for it.

“So do you not want to act at all anymore, after this? I mean this—this is going to be your breakout role, you know.” Richard can picture that already, too, with perfect clarity; every theatre director from here to Belfast is going to want to snap Elliot up. Then the film industry will come calling, and they’ll be wanting him in the next big Ian McEwan adaptation, or something equally maudlin and award-winning.

_And then that’ll be him gone,_ Richard thinks—and almost immediately shakes away the thought, because what is it to him, anyway?

Elliot shrugs. “I love too many things about the theatre to _just_ want to act, I guess. My friends and I got up to all kinds of theatre-related shenanigans in college.”

Richard laughs. “I’ll bet.” Elliot texts his friends back home and talks about them so often that Richard knows most of their names now; Jane is the best friend who could kill a man with her stare, Jonah is the annoying fit one, and there’s someone named Blake who, as far as Richard can tell, is a stand-up comedian-slash-avant-garde performance artist, and whose usual routine apparently involves at least one live ferret.

“What about you?” Elliot lifts his eyes to Richard’s face. For a second, Richard thinks Elliot’s gaze flickers over his mouth—but that’s hardly anything, Richard tells himself, that’s nothing at all.

“Ah, see, I was painfully shy as a child.” Richard takes another casual sip of wine. “I started acting because Mum sent me to theatre camp, in the hope I’d overcome it.”

Elliot grins. “Well, it worked.”

Richard squints into the velvety darkness, up into the upper box. “I wouldn’t say that, now. I’m still shy very often.”

A small noise of surprise escapes Elliot. “I find that hard to believe.”

“No, really.” Richard’s had to explain this to people over and over. “The thing about acting on stage is it’s almost impersonal, if I remember I’m doing it for two thousand people. But when I have to speak in front of just a few people, it’s—I don’t know, I get quite nervous.”

“What about if it’s just one person?” Elliot asks. He’s holding out his hand for a refill.

Richard hesitates. “Depends on the person, I suppose,” he answers, and empties the bottle into Elliot’s wineglass.

Elliot swirls the glass around in his hand and appears to consider that. Richard thinks, too, about how several years after his mother had sent him to theatre camp, he’d sought acting out again entirely of his own volition because he realized he missed it. How his intense, overwhelming fear of the thing had slid gradually into love—into _craving,_ even, without him realizing it.

“Hey,” Elliot says finally. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“Go on,” Richard says, even as he feels a slight flutter begin in his wrists—the pit of his stomach, the point between his shoulder blades.

A mischievous twinkle is in Elliot’s eyes. “Do you still remember all your lines from _Romeo and Juliet?”_

Chuckling, Richard shakes his head. “God. It’s been so long.”

Elliot looks at him. _“O gentle Romeo, if thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully,”_ he says, and then begins to raise his voice, projecting across the stage. _“Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse and say thee nay—so thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.”_ He clasps his hands together and keeps going, all the way to the end of the verse, his voice brimming with reckless passion—clearly to egg Richard on, and Richard starts to laugh helplessly.

But the familiar words stir something in him even so. Richard looks up at the ceiling, waits a moment in the silence, and then utters softly, _“Lady.”_ The rest of the line comes out automatically, he could do this in his sleep—but what surprises Richard is how easy it is to conjure up the _feeling_ again, the feeling of being madly, hopelessly in love that he’d had to draw upon when he did this play the first time. _“By yonder blessed moon I vow, that tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—”_

And then he realizes that he’s turned to look straight into Elliot’s eyes, and Elliot is looking back at him. _“O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,”_ Elliot blurts out, interrupting him, the way he’s supposed to. His lips are parted slightly after the last word, his eyes wide and light.

“What shall I swear by?” Richard whispers.

“Do not swear at all,” Elliot says, his voice gone near-breathless. Then a coyness slips into his tone, and he cocks his head at Richard, grinning, and adds, “Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I’ll believe thee.”

A silence falls over them, and they blink at each other for a moment, coming back to themselves. “You’re sure, then, about the not acting thing?” Richard asks. “Because I think Ken Branagh will be very upset to hear that.”

And his reward then is Elliot laughing, and even that coming out of him sounds musical and rich and rare, and like something Richard doesn’t deserve at all.

—

The scene where they meet goes like this:

It’s a Friday night on Endell Street, in the heart of the West End. The theatres and music halls and cinemas are bursting with color and sound, the bars and nightclubs overflowing with cheers and laughter. It is 1934. There is no more talk of war here; no thought that war will ever touch them again.

Inside the Caravan Club, everyone is dancing to the band’s lively swing number, people twirling into their lovers’ embraces, unafraid—while the club’s owner, Jack Neave, slinks around the perimeter of the dance floor, watching, ensuring all is well. Just an ordinary Friday night.

Then a well-dressed young man enters from stage right, striding through the middle of the crowd, then seamlessly joining in the dance. There’s something undeniably electric about him—the way he moves, the sly expression on his face. He is there to attract everyone and no one; he is dancing for the world, and for himself. The lights change.

Slowly, the dancers near Jack move back and clear a space around him, so the audience can see. The way he’s stopped and stares at the newcomer, it’s clear he’s never seen anything like him before. That all of a sudden, he is burning with questions he desperately needs answered.

_Where did you come from,_ Jack is thinking, in this moment. There are no lines that he speaks aloud, but you can see it in the tentative way he’s frozen in his arc of motion; you can read it on his face. _Who are you, and what did I ever do that means I get to stand here, now, and see you like this?_

—

It’s the night they first rehearse the kiss that Richard knows he’s completely fucked.

“Should we just—go for it?” Richard asks uncertainly. He and Elliot are standing barely a foot away from each other, the stage lights seeming harsh and hot and too close all of a sudden. Their director is in the front row, and Richard tries to ignore the way she’s leaning forward in her seat.

Elliot tilts his head. “If you’re ready, I’m ready,” he says. His eyelids are half-lowered, so Richard can clearly make out the soft fringes of his eyelashes. They haven’t properly started the scene yet, but Elliot already looks like he’s slipping into Billy Reynolds; the flashy, confident businessman who’s slowly dropping his façade, for the first time in a long time. Elliot looks, Richard thinks, his heart starting to pound—so impossibly, undeniably _eager_ to be kissed. Like it’s coming off him in waves.

Richard exhales. “Okay,” he calls to the director, his voice sounding far away to himself. Then he nods at Elliot, and they say their lines, and then Richard pulls Elliot into him and kisses him.

Richard is fully aware that what he’s doing is his job. That both of them are just playing pretend. Still, in this moment, with his eyes closed and his mouth on Elliot’s, his hand drifting up to cup Elliot’s face while Elliot’s hand rests on his waist, it’s impossible for him not to feel the delicious shiver that goes racing down his spine. And Richard is consciously holding back, because he can feel it—how he’s on the edge of something delicate now, that if he pushes too hard might break.

And then Richard pulls away, and Elliot’s eyes are round and almost wet, and they’re both breathing hard and staring at each other, like they’re wild deer stunned by a sudden burst of light. And Richard knows it now for certain—what he’s been afraid to admit to himself, all along.

“Perfect,” their director calls out, sounding as though Christmas has come early. “Gorgeous, you two. Keep it exactly like that. I don’t want you to over-rehearse it.”

Elliot lets out a choked little laugh. “That’s a relief,” he says, pushing his hair back from his forehead. Then he grins impishly at Richard. “If we had to rehearse that too often, you’d have to sop me up from the stage with a sponge.”

Richard makes a face and punches Elliot on the shoulder.

\--

It’s on another night, one that they have off, that their conversation comes around to their dating lives. Elliot asks Richard a little bit about Jenna, and then about Brandon. Then Elliot remarks offhandedly that he hasn’t dated much, himself, and Richard says, “There’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with wanting to focus on yourself for a while.” And Elliot replies, “That’s not it, exactly,” and then he explains.

Later that night, after Richard goes home, he googles demisexuality until he thinks he understands it better. Then he calls Taron, because naturally Taron already knows everything, and this is just an update. “I think what this means is it’s unfair of me to try,” Richard says. He’s smoking by his open window, gazing dully out into the night. “I’m not—anything special to him, I haven’t even _known_ him very long. So I should just let it go, right?”

“Such a defeatist attitude, Madd-lad,” Taron says, his sigh a crackle over the phone. “What would Elton say if he heard you talking like that?”

“I think Elton would resent you constantly bringing up his name like he’s your magical shield against criticism and logical rebuttals, Eggman.”

Taron sniffs. “I’m telling Elton you said that.”

“And besides, he’s so much younger.” Richard passes a hand over his eyes. “Christ. Everything about this is a bad idea.”

Taron isn’t on a video call, but Richard can clearly picture him rolling his eyes. “Okay, well, no laws are being broken and no one’s old enough to have fathered anyone else, so I think you’re fine.”

Richard ignores Taron and continues, “I can’t just ask him out even casually, it’d—ruin everything. You know?”

“I don’t think you’re actually capable of ruining anything, mate,” Taron says. “Even if you tried. You do the opposite of ruin things. You’re the sort of person who could, like, pick up a coconut and a piece of string and Gilligan’s Island them into a working Lamborghini.”

Richard pauses and looks back out his window. Some animal flits past in the dark; a bat, or an owl, maybe, which always makes him think of Harry Potter. He says, “This doesn’t even make sense. I—I like things tidy and quiet and easy and predictable. And he’s—not that, at all.”

Taron clicks his tongue sharply. “Richard, sweetheart, you forget that I know you. As in, I have put my tongue down your throat multiple times, know you. And I know you like a little chaos in your life.”

“No, I don’t,” Richard argues.

“You taking me to Glastonbury with all your friends last year and dragging everyone out of their tents up to the stone circle, where we vaped homemade THC pods with Kit’s Juul and then stood around swearing our undying allegiance to the god of the sun, doesn’t count as you liking a little chaos?” Taron asks.

“We agreed to never bring that up again,” Richard says.

“Just _try. _All right? If you’re not going to do it for yourself—do it for me, your number one queer ally who would love nothing more than to see you happy and settled and loved.”

Richard bites the inside of his cheek and lets out a slow breath. “Maybe.”

_“Sha-la-la la-la-la, my oh my, look like the boy too shy,”_ Taron sings teasingly.

Richard frowns. “What?”

Taron sighs. “Darling, for an actual Disney prince, your knowledge of Disney musicals is downright embarrassing. What about _The Lion King?_ Elton will be so disappointed if you don’t like _The Lion King.”_

—

_Show me your favorite parts of London,_ Elliot says one weekend, so Richard does. He knows Elliot likes art, so he takes him to the Queen’s Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the two of them lose hours drifting from room to room, Elliot chattering enthusiastically as he points out details in 17th-century woven tapestries, parts of Italian Reniassance buildings, Da Vinci’s portrait sketches, Canaletto’s airy paintings of Venice. Then they take their time and walk to Kensington Gardens, which Richard’s always loved for its statues and fountains, and how wide and open it all feels—and stroll through admiring the daffodils that have begun to come up, saying hello to dogs that have been let off their leads, keeping a wide berth from the flock of beady-eyed swans at the lip of the giant pond in the center.

“This is nice,” Elliot says unexpectedly, in the middle of the afternoon. They’re crossing the Millennium Bridge; Richard is hiding behind a pair of lightly tinted shades and smoking a cigarette, and the two of them are sharing a paper cup of caramelized peanuts, hot and sticky between their fingers. All around them, the sky is a clean, papery blue, reflected in the Thames below their feet. “I don’t know, everyone tells you London is so gray and dreary all the time. The great cesspool, and all that…I never thought it would feel like this.”

“You should come back for the holidays,” Richard says, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the air. “London’s quite magical in December. I’ll take you to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Elliot says.

“It’s awful. You’d love it. You’d love it ironically.” There’s a woman loaded down with Tesco bags who’s stomping towards them, so Richard quickly lays his free hand on Elliot’s back and steers him out of her path.

Elliot follows, moving closer to Richard, then glances up at him. “What?” Richard asks, smiling.

“Nothing, it’s just—“ Elliot’s eyes are shining, his cheeks faintly flushed from the cool spring air. “I like that you know when I’ll love something ironically.”

Richard laughs. “The thing is, I feel as though I know maybe two things you love sincerely. It’s not too hard to guess when you love something ironically.”

Elliot hums. “What do you know that I love sincerely?”

Richard pauses, taking a drag off his cigarette while he thinks. “Those Gordon’s pink and tonics, with strawberries,” he says after a moment. “And the original cast recording of _Merrily.”_

Elliot looks at Richard again in surprise, then approval. “You’re a good listener.”

“I’m a good.” Richard falters. “Friend.”

“That you are, Madden,” Elliot says with amusement, in a purr that Richard realizes is a not-at-all-bad attempt at a Scottish accent (and which really should not be as hot as it is, damn it).

Then Richard thinks he feels Elliot shiver, just a little, and that’s when he realizes they’ve been walking along this whole time with Elliot still pushed slightly into his side, Richard’s hand still resting on Elliot’s back. So he drops his hand and curls it into a fist at his side, suddenly upset with himself.

“Hey, instead of Hyde Park, why don’t you take me to Elderslie at Christmas instead?” Elliot asks, in a light tone that doesn’t indicate he’s noticed anything amiss. “Show me the moors of Renfrewshire.”

“Renfrewshire’s not all moors,” Richard manages. And though he knows it’s half a joke, his pulse quickens at the thought of actually taking Elliot back to his hometown—having him stay in the tiny guest room in his parents’ house, brushing past him on the narrow staircase, seeing him sitting at the kitchen table in the morning. The mental image, suddenly, is more than he can bear.

Elliot is watching him expectantly. “We also have lochs,” Richard says, and Elliot laughs.

“Is that where you drive your Jaguar?” Elliot teases. He hasn’t been able to get over the fact that Richard is, in his heart, a Sports Car Person. “Which you still haven’t taken me out in, by the way.”

“Don’t need to go to Scotland for that,” Richard says, equally amused. “You can go fast enough on the M11. We’ll do that, one of these days.”

The corner of Elliot’s mouth tilts upward, the tiniest fraction. “I’ll hold you to it.”

And Richard tries hard not to stare at Elliot’s lips, dusted with sugar; or his throat, or the spot underneath his jaw that he’s had to fight himself to not daydream of kissing. Christ, does Elliot have any idea what he looks like right now? What he _always_ looks like?

“Tourists are gathering. We should be getting on,” Richard says, and picks up his pace so Elliot has to hurry to catch up.

For dinner, Richard buys Elliot falafel from his favorite tiny deli on Charing Cross Road, and then they poke around the musty antique booksellers’ nearby, where Elliot is delighted to unearth some old medical texts that he says will make a good present for his friend Nicholas. After that, they have tickets to watch _The Mousetrap _at St. Martin’s Theatre, not too far a walk from theirs—and during the play Richard must be overthinking it when Elliot shifts in his seat so his knee is pressed up against Richard’s, the length of his forearm aligned with Richard’s own on the armrest. This theatre is very old, Richard tells himself, struggling to focus on the actors onstage; the seats must be much smaller than what he’s accustomed to.

—

The scene where Jack falls in love goes like this:

In the early hours of the morning, the club is closing, all its patrons scurrying off to their own dark corners to hide from the sunrise. But Billy is still there, intent on talking business, so Jack pours him a drink. And then they’re both drinking, and just talking, and then Billy holds both his hands out and asks, _Care to dance with me? _

_I don’t dance,_ Jack replies. _And no, it’s not for the reason you think. I just don’t like it._

_Perhaps it’s because you haven’t had a partner who knows how to dance with you,_ Billy muses aloud.

_Perhaps, _Jack agrees, and takes Billy’s hands.

For a long while, they dance in the quiet, barely doing more than swaying on the spot together, looking at each other. _You know what I like about this place,_ Billy says. _Here you let people be—whoever they want to be._

Jack smiles. _And who is it you want to be?_ he asks.

Billy tilts his head impishly. _Who do you want me to be, Mr. Neave?_

Jack can’t speak.

Then, suddenly, Billy steps back, a smirk playing across his face, and it’s as though a song has ended abruptly even though there wasn’t one playing to begin with. _When you’ve figured out the answer—you’ll let me know, won’t you?_ he asks. Retrieving his scarf from the back of a chair, he throws the end of it over his shoulder. _You have my card,_ Billy says smoothly, and walks out, leaving Jack standing in the middle of the dance floor, alone.

—

Richard hates saying goodbye. On set, he never says goodbye to anyone when they’ve wrapped; instead, when they’re parting ways, he tells them “See you tomorrow,” the way he does at the end of any normal day, even when he knows it’s not going to be true this time. Goodbyes are entirely too much for him; they always make him feel unmoored, the acknowledgment that he’s closing the book on one stage of his life, with people he’s come to love so dearly. No—best to pretend they’re not happening at all.

Though Elliot is extremely vocal about his dislikes (for things Richard had never really given a single thought to before, like black olives, and poly-cotton blends), he’s not a cruel person. He didn’t laugh at all when Richard told him the story about sobbing on the plane home after his stint on GOT had ended, a story most other people take as a funny anecdote. “Are you going to cry when we close?” Elliot asked when Richard was done, and then he looked—genuinely concerned. And Richard felt an odd, deep pang seeing it, like he never wanted to give Elliot a reason to look like that again.

So Richard had kept his tone light, and replied, “Well, it remains to be seen how much I’ll miss you.”

And Elliot had said confidently, “I won’t even give you time to miss me.”

Richard laughed. “What does that even mean?”

Elliot just shrugged and looked away and said, “I’ll think of something. I always do.”

And Richard, loath as he is to admit it, wants him to. He wants it to not just be one of those things people say, not one of those promises to “keep in touch” people tend to make when they’re merely being polite. And yet he hasn’t the faintest idea how that could happen, and knows his time with Elliot is already running out—that soon enough, the day will come when he’ll smile at Elliot, and tell him he’ll see him tomorrow, and he won’t mean a single word.

—

During their last week of previews, a few of Elliot’s friends fly in from the States, as they’ll be attending the play’s official opening. Elliot insists Richard join them for dinner one night, and Richard asks if he can bring Taron along. “Did you invite me because you’re nervous and you need a buffer person to help you remain calm around the really hot boy you fancy?” Taron asks knowingly over speakerphone.

“I invited you because you are one of my dearest friends who would never do such a thing as think to embarrass me in front of one of my co-workers, around whom I am calm at all times,” Richard says flatly, holding a white shirt up to his chest and then a black one, peering at himself in the mirror.

Taron snorts. “Just for that, I’m bringing the copies I made of all your baby pictures. I’ll see you at seven. Oh, and wear something sexy,” he says, and hangs up.

When Richard and Taron arrive at Quaglino’s, Elliot and the others are already there. Elliot seems more on edge than usual—excited to see his friends after so long, no doubt, Richard thinks as he’s introduced to everyone. “Hey! You look stunning,” Elliot says, clasping Richard’s elbows and beaming at his outfit.

“It’s, it’s just a shirt,” Richard says awkwardly. He’d gone with the black one eventually, after figuring it was classic and low-maintenance at the same time. Taron gives him an approving wink over Elliot’s head.

“So, Richard,” Nicholas says, smiling, after they’re all seated. “What shenanigans has Elliot gotten up to while he’s been here?”

“Oh, not too many, actually,” Richard says politely.

Elliot somehow looks affronted by this. “Untrue. What about the Wear Pajamas to Work Day I organized?”

“You mean the Wear Pajamas to Work Day when the only people who showed up in pajamas were you and that one girl from wardrobe?” Richard asks in amusement.

Elliot sniffs. “Maggie is my only real friend.”

“Hmmm. The Elliot I know would never settle for a low-turnout shenanigan,” Jane remarks lightly, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her knuckles. “Sounds to me like you’re off your game.”

Elliot glares at her over the rim of his glass. Richard gets the vague feeling that he’s missing something here, but then the waiter appears with their food, and he forgets about it.

They continue swapping stories over dinner, and then Taron gets pulled into a complex conversation about deepfakes with Blake (so much for buffer person), while Elliot and Nicholas head off to see if they can request “In the Mood” from the live band. So Richard turns to Jonah and Jane, who are sharing a plate of oysters. “Who chose this place?” Jonah asks, looking around at the art deco furnishings interestedly.

“Elliot did,” Richard says. He’d only ever come to Quag’s once before, when Sophie had that phase where she was obsessed with _The Great Gatsby _and made them all watch it with her while drinking Gin Rickeys.

Jonah snorts. “Of course he did. For the period-accurate lampshades more than anything, I’m sure.”

Richard just laughs. “You know him well.”

“I do.” Jonah regards Richard with what seems like wariness. “He talks about you a lot, you know.”

Richard feels oddly naked all of a sudden. But he says, lightly, “All good things, I hope?”

“Actually, yes, they are.” Jonah is still half-frowning at Richard curiously.

Then Elliot appears at his elbow. “Richard,” he interrupts smoothly. “Is Jonah getting his Jonah-ness all over you? Just let me know if you need me to switch his seat.”

“Or tug on my leash, you mean.” Jonah sounds both peeved and weary at the same time.

Elliot keeps smiling, sweet as poison, and lays one hand on Richard’s shoulder. The gesture feels—oddly possessive, coming from him. “Do you want another drink?” Elliot asks him. “I could use another drink.”

“I—yeah, sure,” Richard says, confused.

When they’re at the bar, Elliot exhales and says, “Sorry. Jonah can be kind of…obnoxious. I didn’t want you to have to sit there and deal with him.” He’s fretting and appears to need to do something with his hands, so he starts absently brushing lint off the front of Richard’s shirt and doesn’t quite seem to be aware that that’s what he’s doing.

“No, it’s all right.” Richard pauses. “I can tell he looks out for you. All your friends do.”

Elliot just frowns and brushes harder, until Richard gently catches his wrist. “Hey,” he says, tipping his chin down to meet Elliot’s eyes. “What’s got you so antsy?”

Elliot looks startled. “Nothing.”

Richard’s about to press him further, but then the barman sets their drinks down, and Elliot’s expression goes back to normal so quickly that it would feel ruder to keep asking. So Richard sort of pats Elliot’s arm, and then they take their drinks back to the table, where Richard almost immediately gets into a wrestling match with Taron over the copies of his baby pictures that he’d been showing the others under the tablecloth.

“I thought that went extraordinarily well,” Taron remarks at the end of the night, as they’re standing outside and hailing a cab. “Your man is sweet. His friends, too.”

“He’s not,” Richard says.

Taron raises his eyebrows. “He’s not sweet?”

“He’s not mine.” Richard pushes his hands into his coat pockets.

Instantly, Taron turns and grabs Richard by the shoulders. “Ow,” Richard complains.

_“Ask him out, you knob,”_ Taron says loudly, giving Richard a good shake. “And I don’t mean all the cute primary school trip stuff you’ve been doing on the weekends, I mean a proper date, like one where you use the actual word _date._ If he says no, what’s the worst that could happen? You go back to being friends, it’s all fine. Why do you have to turn everything into a crisis?”

Richard opens his mouth to protest, but then he realizes—maybe Taron is right. Maybe he’s been making this far more difficult than it needs to be. “You’re right,” he says dazedly.

Taron lets go and throws his hands in the air. “Of fucking course I’m right. So you’re going to ask him, then?”

“I think…” Richard watches the cab rolling to a stop in front of them. “Yeah. Probably Monday.” It’ll be then, he thinks, or never.

“Finally.” Taron sighs and opens the door for Richard, ushering him in impatiently. “I only have to listen to your whinging for two more days.”

“I don’t whinge,” Richard says, sulkily, and climbs into the cab.

\--

On Monday morning Richard walks into the theatre, asks where Elliot is and is told no one’s seen him yet, which is odd given the hour; goes into the dressing room and finds it empty, and then finally opens the door to the adjoining bathroom and sees Elliot sitting on the shower floor.

“Hey,” Richard says, shutting the door behind him and instantly dropping to his knees, fighting down his own panic. He half-scoots, half-crawls across the few inches of floor until he’s next to Elliot, who is staring at the wall looking—lost. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Elliot startles, shaken out of his trance. “Sorry,” he blurts out. He draws his forearm over his eyes. “Fuck. It’s nothing, I just—sometimes I get—“ He makes an inarticulate gesture and takes a shaky breath.

He doesn’t have to explain. Richard reaches out and folds his arms around Elliot, pulling him sideways into his chest. This isn’t anything he hasn’t done before; he’s sat with Taron like this, too, back when he was having panic attacks on set.

But Elliot curls into Richard in a way Taron never did, and Richard can’t do anything but let him, opening the angle of his body so Elliot can fit and tightening his arms around him. Squeezing his eyes shut, Richard presses his mouth into the mass of curls on the top of Elliot’s head, just needing him to feel that he’s not alone. They stay like that for a while, Richard deliberately taking slow, deep breaths in and out, until he feels Elliot relax and start to align his breathing with his.

“I’m okay,” Elliot says finally. He shifts a little, and Richard takes that as his sign to slowly let go. Elliot’s eyes are still damp, but he seems more present in them now than he was. “Sorry. I think all of this, everything just…caught up with me, kind of.”

“You don’t have to apologize, mate,” Richard says gently. He wants to touch Elliot again, but he knows that would be more for him than for Elliot at this point, so he doesn’t. “And you’ll be fine. God—you’ll be more than fine. You’re doing beautifully. No one doubts that, not for a single second.”

Elliot smiles shakily. “Thank you.” He looks up at Richard in gratitude. “I’m—I’m glad you were here.”

“I’m always here,” Richard says, and needs Elliot to understand. “Even—look, if ever I’m not, y’know, around, and you need someone to call, you can still—“

“I know,” Elliot says, and there’s something odd and quiet in his voice. He’s still gazing up at Richard, looking—somewhat puzzled now. 

And somehow, that’s when Richard thinks it sinks in, really sinks in—that they have a few days left together, in this little world they’ve built, and then after they open, they’ll have a few short months before they’re done for good. Elliot will go back to his life, and Richard to his.

Elliot doesn’t need Richard complicating any of that. What he needs is a friend.

So Richard unfolds himself and stands up, and then holds out his hand. “C’mon,” he says, brisk and cheerful. “We’ve got a show to run through.”

Elliot smiles again, more steady now, and slips his hand into Richard’s, and lets him pull him to his feet.

\--

The scene that ends the play goes like this:

The Caravan Club has been shut down, after a police raid, under accusations of indecency. Gone are the curtains and lampshades in rainbow colors, the platform for the band, the wide open dance floor. The stage is a courtroom now, the judge’s bench looming shadowy over the witness stand—a tiny, bare island center stage, lit by a harsh beam.

The members of the jury file in, then the judge, in his white wig and blood-red robes. It was their fathers’ generation that sent Oscar Wilde to Reading Gaol. They already know how this plays out.

Jack watches, helpless and unable to speak, as Billy takes the stand first. Billy calculatedly does not look at him—does not look at anyone, instead lifting his chin and staring straight ahead. _Nothing indecent happened, _Billy says._ It was harmless fun. _He even laughs a little. _It was dancing, for God’s sake. Surely dancing is still permitted in nightclubs?_

_But the people dancing, they were homosexuals, were they not, Mr. Reynolds? _the judge presses.

Billy smirks. _Oh, we had definitely quite queer people down there, yes._

Shocked murmurs. The judge cracks his gavel.

Then Billy is asked how he became involved with the club as its financier. _How did you come to know Mr. Neave? What was your relationship with Mr. Neave?_

And for the first time since he’s met him, Jack is begging Billy to not be so proud of who he is. To not be so unafraid of the consequences. _Lie, _he is thinking._ We were business partners. Nothing more than that. If you want to save us both, lie for me._

_Mr. Neave and I were business partners, _Billy says, slowly. Then he turns and looks at Jack, and that’s when Jack realizes—Billy has never wanted to be anything less than who he is.

_And I love him, _Billy says, and Jack closes his eyes as the sound rises up from the crowd.

—

Elliot’s opening night shenanigan is sending everyone flowers. Literally _everyone; _their director, their producers, the rest of the cast, the stage hands, the tech people, the front of house staff. It’s an extravagant gesture, and an undeniably sweet one. Richard keeps his bouquet trimmed in a vase of fresh water on his dressing table, but hides the card—_Here’s to us, darling! From your secret gay lover, E.—_in the back of his wallet.

The play opens to success, to everyone’s relief. Standing ovations, glowing reviews, the works. After the first show, Elliot’s friends all piled backstage and smothered him in a group hug. (Blake also inexplicably gave Elliot a taxidermied skink, which he said was for luck.) Richard smiled and secretly took pictures with his phone, which he sent to Elliot later. _So you’ll remember, _he told him.

Six mornings a week, Richard steps out of his flat and lights a cigarette and takes long, cold walks back and forth across the river just as the sun is coming up. Then six nights a week, he goes out on stage and lets a theatre full of people watch him fall in love. The more he turns it into a routine, the easier it is to remind himself, what’s real and what isn’t.

Richard has a tendency to get to work early, which he doesn’t mind—he likes having the dressing room to himself for a while. Today, he has a tall, kind of shit coffee from Costa and a newspaper to keep him busy, and as he takes off his coat, he scrolls through his phone and puts on the upbeat playlist Taron made for him, after the unspeakably embarrassing night that Richard polished off the bottle of Madeira he had in his cupboard and then sent him a load of drunk texts to explain what had happened with Elliot. (The playlist is named _you’re a single knob and that’s okay. _Richard takes the fact that Taron gave him that instead of an hour-long lecture as testament to what a good friend Taron is when he wants to be.)

Crossing the room, Richard tosses his coat over the back of his chair and starts to sing along under his breath. “—if you don’t care about me, I’ll just dance for myself, back on my beat,” he mutters. Then he starts really bopping along with it, because fuck it, no one’s around to see. Spinning around, Richard sings louder, “I’ll be the one, if you don’t care about m—“

And then Elliot opens the door.

Richard stops dancing. “I,” he says stupidly.

“Are you...having a solo Carly Rae party in here?” Elliot stares at him for a second. “Fuck. That’s adorable.” Then he shakes his head a little, and looks almost taken aback at himself. “Sorry, that came out like—I just, wasn’t expecting to find this when I came in today.“

Richard can feel himself flushing like mad. But then he laughs, and holds out his hands and says, “Well, there’s room at this party for more. Care to join me?”

Elliot looks like he’s hesitating, just for a second, but then he grins. “Nothing we haven’t done before, right?” he says, and kicking the door shut behind him, steps in to dance with Richard.

Elliot fits into the circle of Richard’s arms in a way that’s so familiar to him by now, and as they sway to the rhythm, they look at each other and both start laughing. Then Elliot starts singing along, and even if he’s doing it in a half-jokey way, his voice is—beautiful, there’s no other word for it. It’s honestly the most fun Richard’s had in a while, and Elliot is so unbelievably perfect, that Richard can’t even find it in himself to feel guilty—and besides, he thinks, there’s nothing wrong with friends just having a good time together, is there?

Richard spins Elliot out, then draws him back in and says, grinning, “I could try and dip you, but I might drop you.”

“No, please, go for it,” Elliot replies, his eyes sparkling. “I trust you.”

So Richard does, his hands braced against Elliot’s spine, Elliot gripping Richard’s shoulders and leaning back into it, never breaking eye contact, just smiling like he really does trust him that much. And when Richard pulls Elliot back up, they’re—standing so much closer than he realized they were, and his hands are still pressed into Elliot’s back, and he can’t seem to find a way to let go.

The song is fading out now. “Richard?” Elliot asks, his voice barely above a whisper. Richard can feel his breath on his cheek.

Richard swallows. “Yes, Elliot?”

Elliot is searching his face now. “What…what is this?”

Richard closes his eyes, helpless. “I don’t know,” he says, hearing the crack in his own voice. “All I know is you’re—god, Elliot, you’re destroying me.”

He can feel Elliot take a slow, shaky breath. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. Um.”

Elliot takes a step back, and Richard thinks he’s made a mistake, but then Elliot starts talking. “So the thing is, at first I was flirting with you mostly because it was fun, and I was taking it as a good sign that I could do that with someone and still be relaxed around them and, and not have it mean anything, you know? But then I started to realize, what if the reason I could do it with you was because it _did _mean something—and then it started to become clear to me, just how much I liked you. Like, I _really_ like you. And then I felt like such a mess, because how _amateur _would it be of me to fall in love with my co-star, right?”

Elliot is pushing a hand through his hair in distress, looking down at the floor. Richard takes a step towards him. Then another. “And then I had that stupid panic attack,” Elliot continues, “and when you found me I thought it would send you running, but it didn’t, and what made it worse was part of the reason why I was having such a crisis in the first place was because of _you,_ because you’re so,” Elliot makes a vague gesture, “god, all the time, and I didn’t know how to tell you, so I just—“

Richard is near enough now that he can cup one hand around Elliot’s face and lean in. “Elliot,” he says softly, just at the corner of Elliot’s lips. “Don’t you ever stop _talking?”_ he asks, and then Richard kisses him—for real, for the first time.

And Elliot’s mouth is soft as ever, but now he tilts up into Richard in a way that’s so much better than anything they’ve done before, than anything he could have ever imagined, his fingers curling into Richard’s hips, and then he makes this tiny helpless sound in the back of his throat that sets Richard’s blood on fire. The rush of desire is instantaneous and overwhelming; all of a sudden Richard doesn’t know how he was surviving before, on such a pale, ghostly imitation of _this. _This is the most real thing he’s ever felt; this is the only thing he’ll ever need.

Richard’s head is still spinning when they finally part. Elliot is gazing up at him in disbelief, and he looks like he wants to say something important, but then he stops and frowns. “What the fuck is _playing_ right now?” he demands. “Are you—are you playing _‘Ridin’ Solo’?”_

Richard blinks. His phone is, unfortunately, blasting a Jason Derulo song. “Oh, Christ. Sorry, it’s, that’s Taron’s fault, you can blame him.” He scrambles to kill his phone, and then they take one look at each other and crack up.

“But why didn’t you _say_ anything?” Elliot asks once they’ve calmed down. “I mean, god…we could have been doing this so much sooner.”

“A lot of reasons.” Richard straightens up and starts moving closer to Elliot again. “Many of which I’m fairly sure are still valid.”

“Ah.” Elliot is slowly backing towards the dressing table. He tilts his head to one side. “What are your reasons?”

Richard shrugs. “Can’t really remember right now.” Pushing Elliot up against the edge of the dressing table, Richard kisses him hard, hands in his soft hair, catching his bottom lip between his teeth so that Elliot gasps.

Kissing back, Elliot attempts to steady himself with one hand on the table—then breaks the kiss and yelps, _“Wait,”_ and before Richard knows it, Elliot is carefully taking all the things off the dressing table and setting them neatly on the adjacent one.

Richard bites back a laugh. “You’re impossible,” he says, leaning in to kiss the back of Elliot’s neck. “So many intermissions. I don’t know why I like you so much.”

“Look, this way nothing gets broken and you have a clear surface to debauch me on,” Elliot says, arching his spine. “And I think you know—_ah_—exactly why you like me.”

Sighing impatiently, Richard reaches around Elliot and sweeps the last random book to the floor. Then he grabs Elliot and turns him around, lifts him up by his hips, and sets him roughly on the table. “If you stop one more time to tell me to—adjust the lighting or set out some potpourri or something, I swear I’m going to commit bloody murder,” Richard says thickly.

“No more intermissions.” Elliot draws Richard closer and locks his knees around his hips, and it’s the hottest thing Richard’s ever experienced, every new thing Elliot does is the hottest thing Richard’s ever experienced. “Promise,” Elliot says, and this time he’s the one who kisses Richard first.

They make out like teenagers for a while, Richard pushing him up against the mirror and losing track of where his hands go, relishing the heat of Elliot, Elliot who kisses him again and again, who licks into his mouth and sighs into his hair and writhes against him in a way that is totally fucking _unfair,_ that Richard will have to find a way to get him back for later. Elliot who is, for the moment, his and no one else’s.

_“Fuck,”_ Elliot says fervently, when they’re both getting their breath back. “I can’t believe we have to go to work later and I have to stand there on stage and _not kiss you_ for a whole hour.”

“Well, there’s always after,” Richard says, smiling and resting his forehead against Elliot’s, before moving to nuzzle along Elliot’s jaw, pleased by how much he shudders. “And tomorrow. And tomorrow.” And it’s true, he thinks. This doesn’t have to be a crisis. They have time to figure this out.

Elliot rocks forward into him, tangling one hand in Richard’s hair. “I’m counting on it.”

“According to Taron, I still have to ask you out on a proper date,” Richard murmurs.

Elliot grins against his temple. “What do you have in mind?”

\--

“Holy _shit,”_ Elliot screeches, reaching over the gear stick and gripping Richard’s wrist. “You weren’t kidding when you said you like to go fast.” The windows of Richard’s car are rolled down to let the wind through, the bushes and trees that line the M11 turning into blurs of green as they zip past.

“This is nothing, sweetheart,” Richard laughs. “We’re just getting started.”

“If I get a heart attack and die because of you, I’m going to come back as the world’s loudest, most overdramatic ghost and haunt you forever,” Elliot grumbles from where he’s scrunched all the way down in the passenger seat. But his grip relaxes, and then he moves his hand so he’s holding onto the edge of Richard’s sleeve instead.

The highway is stretched out before them, and Richard feels the familiar joy welling up inside him, at the speed he’s making, at the trees and the wind and the light. Just for a moment, he turns to look at Elliot, lifting his hand briefly to run his knuckles down Elliot’s cheek, to brush the corner of his smile. Then, smiling back, Richard looks ahead, and changes gear, and drives on.

**Author's Note:**

> \- The Caravan Club was a real gay club on Endell Street in the 30s, and Jack Neave and Billy Reynolds were also real, although their romance was not! 
> 
> \- I have no explanation for the premise of the play other than I wanted you to have a reason to imagine an impeccably-dressed Elliot striding into a 1930s nightclub as “Sing, Sing, Sing” by Benny Goodman plays in the background. You’re very welcome.


End file.
